Wilhelm Chapters 1 and 2

The first two chapters of Strategic Reading by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Tanya N. Baker, and Julie Dube discuss different theories of teaching in general and different theories of teaching reading. Wilhem, Baker, and Dube argue that Vygotsky's theory of teaching is the best model for a teacher who's goal is to have their students develop new skills as well as master content. Right from the beginning I was struck by their student-centered approach, "what kids would know when they were done with the unit, and what they would know how to do that they didn't already know" (2). I think that this quote from the beginning of chapter two perfectly sums up the challenge they pose to teachers in Strategic Reading. Do you just want your students to get good grades (because you gave them work in their zone of actual development)? Or, do you want to challenge your students to actually grow, learn, and become more competent in learning and reading strategies so that they can master the next challenge. This is already a daunting task and then they add to it that learning needs to be fun (14)- oh man! Personally I do not think that making my class fun will be my biggest challenge, but I do think that it will be a very specific triumph to achieve a classroom where students are given a lot of the reins, where I am a helpful guide, and where they have fun without missing the whole point of a lesson. In the second chapter, Wilhelm describes a unit around irony which seems to hit all these marks- how can we as teachers get this formula right everytime? As his other personal anecdotes reflect, sometimes you will not get the formula right. When he writes about stooping to the level of a "teacher run, information-transmission model," I believe he is describing an experience that no person can completely avoid in all their years of teaching (41). What I believe makes him a good teacher, however, was his ability to recognize that what he was doing wasn't working, despite being able to transmit content knowledge to his students. I really like the strategy of guided reading and what it can lead to. Wilhelm laments that funding and attention by teachers for teaching reading evaporates by middle school; as a (hopeful) future middle school teacher, I will try to breathe life back into teaching reading, especially because Social Studies requires so much reading. This discussion reminded my of a lesson that Dr. Kraus modeled for us on indirect instruction. The topic was the Crimean War and the celebration of war and heroism in memory and propaganda- pretty big ideas. He set up stations with primary and secondary sources on a battle in the war and posed the question to us: what really happened? He went around our small groups and helped us look at the sources the right way and in the end the class had a very thoughtful discussion. While this activity isn't exactly described by Wilhelm, I feel like he would see that this fits into his ideal.

I like this sketch of ZPD because it puts it on the students' terms: Anxiety/Learning/Comfort. It gives the student more agency in its quantification of their development. 

Literacy Profile / SED507

         Beyond the discourses of History, American Studies, Political Science, and Geography, I am literate in the discourse of sailing and boating. Interestingly enough, I have found some overlap in the discourse of sailing and boating and the discourse of History, for example, when I took a class at RIC about the Atlantic World. Moving beyond the academic, sailing, boating, and maritime safety have been areas in which I have grown in literacy throughout my memorable life.

My father grew up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and took me with him on all types of vessels as soon as I was able to tag along. My family have been members of the East Greenwich Yacht Club since before I was born. It was always a dream of my dad’s that I would grow up to love life on the water in the same way that he does. When I was eight years old my parents signed me up for the sailing camp run by EGYC. Granted, when I was eight I was much more interested in swimming and being outside than learning how to properly tack and gibe a boat, or how to make a safe docklanding. Be that as it may, by the age of eight I was introduced to a whole new world of skills, gear, rigs, blades, hulls, and terminology.

I think that I was inspired to keep up with the evolving world of knowledge because of my dad’s passion for sailing but also because of the instructors I had in my first few summers. They were all college-aged kids and I literally thought that they were the coolest people on the planet. I wanted to grow up and be just like them. I knew that they sailed competitively and for fun outside of what they did for work, and I wanted to be a part of that world someday. So, in order to make those dreams a reality, I stuck with sailing at the camp, even when I was tempted to quit in order to have a “normal” summer of guiltless spontaneity. When I was fourteen, I was given the opportunity to Jr. Instruct classes, meaning I would help teach the beginners while also still taking part in racing classes. Nine years, three different yacht clubs, and numerous job titles later, I am the Program Manager of the Jr. Sailing Program at Saunderstown Yacht Club.

Being literate in the discourse of boating requires you to adopt a whole new vocabulary; we don’t even say “right” or “left,” but “starboard” and “port.” I think that the biggest way that I learned all these new words was to just use them and not be afraid of having to be corrected. I also remember having to take a written test to prove my sailing literacy before I was able to move on to higher level classes. As I moved from learning general sailing skills to learning about racing tactics and strategies, another new set of jargon was introduced to me- “laylines,” “black flag,” “protest,” “penalty spin,” etc. I remember something that was helpful to me was that at every club I sailed at there were lots of instructor-made posters reminding me of the discourse- diagrams of the points of sail and parts of boats, “Rules of the Road” posters, visual representations of race courses- all of these things helped me feel more confident utilizing and discussing sailing jargon, knowing that I could peek at them and “cheat” a little bit if I was having a hard time getting an idea or question across.

As a future teacher, my sailing literacy will benefit me in a few different ways. As a practical matter, I would be able to coach the sailing team of a school I may work at (if they have a team), and during my summers off I hope to continue to serve as Program Manager at a sailing center. But beyond job and work realities, I think that my experience of learning, and continuing to learn, about sailing will influence how I teach the discourses of the social sciences. My instructors always did a really good job of surrounding us in the language of sailing and helping us understand it to the point where we could comfortably use it ourselves. As a future teacher, I hope to tackle the language of History with my students in a way that is seamless and even blended into the rest of my instruction. Instead of having a “vocabulary day,” I hope to blend that aspect of learning into the rest of the content to that it makes better sense, instead of removing the important language from the content, erasing its meaning.