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Introduction to My 4th-8th Grade Literacy Timeline
From Kindergarten to 12th grade, I attended the same school district - DuQuoin District #300. Throughout my academic career, I was a polite, focused student who enjoyed school and learning. I do not recall many academic memories from my elementary school career, where as my middle school career sticks out more. For example, through 5th-8th grade, I was placed in "accelerated" reading classes where I can recall more literacy learning. Activities and books, specifically, are bold in my memory. -
4th Grade: AR Reading Program
During my 4th Grade academic career and even during my 5th Grade year, I remember the Accelerated Reading Program to be very prominent. I enjoyed reading. I could read books fast and test well on comprehension. Therefore, my friend - another red-head, Esther - and I made a competition out of AR Reading. We would exceed past our goals & read up to 100+ points per month. However now, I have a different opinion towards this program, because I am not sure if it is fair to all types of learners. -
4th Grade: Body Paragraphs (Person's Body)
During my 4th grade year, my teacher - Mrs. Pierce - introduced more in depth activities about writing, specifically about "body paragraphs." We did activities where we talked about writing narratives like a person's body - like the head as the first paragraph, the middle section as the middle paragraph, and the legs as the conclusion paragraph. When we would outline our paper's topic before writing it, our teacher would give us a graphic organizer with a person's body to help outline thoughts. -
4th Grade/5th Grade: Body Paragraphs (Hamburger)
During the end of 4th grade & even into 5th grade, my teachers re-introduced the topic of body paragraphs, however in more detail about writing. My teachers used a model, just like the model of a person's body, for students to write narratives with a clear focus and outline - especially with more detail. For this activity, my teachers modeled a graphic organizer like a hamburger. They taught us about introductory paragraphs with a topic sentence, detailed paragraphs, & a concluding paragraph. -
4th Grade: French Instruction
During my fourth grade year, students studying French at the high school would come once a week to my classroom; they taught us basic French words and a few, different phrases. This affected my literacy in a few humorous ways. I would try to use these words and phrases as much as possible. Once, when my mother and I were at Walmart, I pretended that I could speak only French while we were checking out - only using the phrases and basic words that I knew while "speaking" to my mom. -
5th Grade: "Accelerated" Reading Classes
When I entered into 5th grade, which was now considered Middle School, I was placed into both, "accelerated" reading and math classes. This changed my view of how academics, specifically literacy, was supposed to be set up for all students. It even created a bias towards other students without even realizing it at such a young age. As an educator, I find it more difficult to fully grasp the concept of mainstreaming and how to exemplify it in my literacy and mathematics classrooms/lesson plans. -
5th Grade: Esperanza Rising
During my 5th grade year, I remember doing a literacy unit on "Esperanza Rising." This was my first, memorable moment of cultured curriculum in this school district. We did many activities during this unit where we learned about the Hispanic culture - including lifestyle, clothing, and food. At 10 years old, I should have been more introduced to a balanced curriculum that introduces all types of cultures. This memory helps me as an educator to remember how important this type of curriculum is. -
5th Grade: Began Writing
During my 5th grade year, I began to enjoy writing during my learning of literature and also as a hobby. When I would write stories, I would exciting show my reading teacher at the time - Mrs. Lanczy. I could tell that she was not interested, and I would say not impressed. This hindered my ability to show my interest in literature and writing, because I felt uncomfortable showing my own projects to my teachers - specially my "accelerated" reading teachers. -
6th Grade: Number the Stars
During my 6th grade year, I was first introduced to the historical and cultural event - the Holocaust. This was the first time during my literacy education that I learned about a historical event through a chapter book and unit activities. As an educator, this is why I may be more prone to teaching historical and cultural events through literature and unit activities. -
6th Grade: Meeting an Author
During my 6th grade year, and around the time my reading class was in the Holocaust unit, my school brought in a public speaker for an assembly at my school. The public speaker was the author of "Four Perfect Pebbles" named Marion Lazan. She spoke about the Holocaust and the book that she wrote. Each of us students got a copy of her book. -
5th Grade: Accelerated Reading Class Switch
After a few months of being in "accelerated" reading, my teacher - Mrs. Lanczy - decided that I was not "cut out" for her accelerated classroom. Although, I had a low A/high B in her classroom. I spent a few days in a "normal," literacy environment, before that literacy teacher, Mrs. Montgomery, referred me back to Mrs. Lanczy's classroom. This was embarrassing as a middle school student, and I did not feel comfortable in her classroom which could have possibly hindered my learning. -
6th Grade: Literacy Devices
After a few months of 6th grade, my literacy teacher introduced the types of "literacy devices." These terms can include simile, metaphors, alliteration, personification, imagery, etc. Our teacher would teach us each of the literacy devices individually. We would learn about the terms and then make connections to our own examples or examples from the books that we were reading. This lesson in literacy was important to how I would interpret stories and writing from then to now. -
7th Grade: Reading Journals
During my 7th grade year, my literacy teacher introduced the activity of "Reading Journals." Whenever the class would read a book together or even individually, the teacher would have us write about it in our reading journals. However, instead of the teacher only reading the journals, the teacher would have our classmates read them & discuss our findings/notes as partners. As an educator, I look back on these activities & see the importance of this activity for literature in the classroom. -
6th Grade: Personal Interest in Reading
During my 6th grade year, I became more interested in personal reading during my free time at school and at home. I would spend a lot of time in the library during the week, because I would quickly read a book, need to return it, and check out another book. Books that interested changed in type and genre. I started to like books that were strictly made for pre-teen girls and written about girl groups or middle school romance. Sequels like "The Clique" were my favorite, and I owned each book. -
7th Grade: The Hobbit
During my 7th grade year, my literacy teacher introduced us to the novel, "The Hobbit." In my opinion, this novel is a little too strenuous and difficult for a seventh grade student. At this level, I was not able to focus on the topic of the novel and fully comprehend the concept that the author was trying to express. This made it difficult for me to enjoy and be interested in this topic/concept. It affected my literacy by creating a bias towards this genre of literature. -
7th Grade: Relationship with Librarian
During my 7th grade year and into my 8th grade year, I was highly interested in reading. It was one of my favorite hobbies. As mentioned before, I would spend lots of time in the library looking at and checking out books. Since I spent a lot of time in the library, I created a relationship with the librarian. She was very nice, and she connected with me in many ways. She helped enhance my learning of literature, since we discussed books together and the types of literacy devices in each. -
7th Grade: Grammar Sheets
One type of activity that sticks out to me from 7th grade includes the use of "grammar sheets" in the classroom. To help teach terms about literature, my reading teacher would have us do worksheets about certain concepts of grammar during Language Arts. As an educator, I know that one type of activity is not an effective way to teach a concept. Looking back on the years after, the concept of grammar was confusing to me, & I was not confident about it until I learn more during 11th grade. -
8th Grade: Peer Review
Throughout my 8th grade year, our literacy teacher would have us write different types of papers - like narrative, persuasive, and informative. One method that our teacher taught us to use was called "peer review." Before we would publish our papers, we had to peer review the papers by allowing other classmates to look over our papers for grammar, main ideas, and the overall general focus. I have used this method every time I publish a paper ever since I was taught this skill. -
8th Grade: Discussions and Debates
Reading and writing are two forms of literacy that are important to grasp and learn about. One type of literacy that can be overlooked is the action of speaking and having discussion among classmates. During my 8th grade year, my literacy teacher was prominent on letting us hold discussions and debates about topics from the novels that we were reading together as a class. Through these discussions, I would gain a better understanding of the book's content through other's opinions. -
8th Grade: Wrote a Letter to My Future Self
During the end of my 8th grade year, my literacy teacher had my reading class write letters addressed to ourselves in the future. We wrote a properly addressed letter with information about ourselves and what we think our lives will be like when are about to graduate high school. Our literacy teacher kept these letters for us until we graduated high school, and then she mailed them to us. I enjoyed reading a letter to myself from the past. It put the perspective of literacy and use of letters. -
6th Grade/7th Grade/8th Grade: Literacy Teacher
From 6th grade until I was promoted to high school, I had the same literacy teacher for all three years. We were consider "Accelerated" Reading groups, and there was only one teacher for this class from 6th to 8th grade. As an educator, I am curious to how differently I would have learned literacy during these years if I was exposed to other types of learning styles from the views of several teachers. I also did not connect with this literacy teacher, so I m curious to how I would have learned. -
Reflection
So in reflection, there were many activities that helped develop a better sense of reading and writing - especially as I got ready to attend high school and then furthermore, college. However, there were also teachers that may have hindered my literacy development through their attitude or lack of other teacher styles.
