Looking back at all the readings and writing I have done over the semester I have come to realize I have learned many new things about teaching literacy. I learned a great deal from Gee's book and the multimedia project about how to teach literacy in different ways. Knowing the different multi modal aspects may help a student with literacy and have them form strong affinity groups with others for community support. From the articles about teaching writing and the memorandum project, I have learned much about how to view literacy in a different light, and how to teach it to various types of students. I really found the information on socialization while reading and writing to be of particular interest. I do believe allowing for discourse is something a lot of teachers are afraid of because they feel students may get off task, yet I feel discussing concepts with others is a great way for thinking up new ideas. I also liked the information on allowing for student choice and letting students reflects on their social literacies so the writing makes sense to who they are as a person. From Harvey's book and our writing sequence I have come to learn some interesting pieces of information about how to use reading materials to solidify a writing assignment. I really found the information on highlighting texts and having anchor texts to be useful.
Personally, as a learner myself I have really broadened my knowledge on how to teach literacy in the classroom. I really did know what approach towards reading and writing to take prior to this class; however, after all these resources I have great background in literacy theories and research, which I definitely will use in my future classroom. A huge thing I learned about literacy is it is not something that only high school students use when writing huge research papers or reading novels, but that all of this research can be used in any grade and will really help even a first grade with novel aspects of literacy. As a reader I feel I read much more for content rather than to just get through the reading. Because I found so much of the readings useful if makes me want to be a better reader and thoroughly read from now on. As a writer, I feel like I can write much stronger pieces because I know how to use reading as foundation and the handbook with be something I keep forever for a great tool. The major idea I want to remember and use when I am a teacher is the idea of making writing relevant to the students show them that writing is not just a 5 paragraph essay, but has many different genres and that it can be a great outlet for creativity and expression. although, I really want to implement all the aspects I discussed above through out my reading and writing curriculum. Overall, I found this class to be extremely useful for my future teaching career. I have learned so many new things about how to teach literacy and how to become an effective teacher in this domain. I truly found this class to have opened my eyes on how to be a better teacher of literacy.