Something Learned

As a result of my fellowship and intern experience this summer, I have definitely learned about a lot of abstract ideas, with the main focus on the value of personal and professional relationships and how they enrich teaching and learning. On a more concrete level, and specifically related to my externship with NC DPI’s English/Language Arts department, my focus this year will be on the evolving definition of “text.”

As a student, the idea of text was limited. It had to be an encyclopedia, professional publication, or classic literature to be considered a valuable text. I remember spending countless hours in university and public libraries, even as a high school student, in search of approved sources. Today, that idea is changing. Thanks to Web 2.0 tools and an evolving internet, everyone is a writer and everyone is a publisher. Learning to evaluate resources and media is a critical skill. One element of the Common Core State Standards that I will emphasize this year is the creation of varied text sets, or reference materials that include print, digital, and multimedia resources.

Just today, I was working with a fellow fifth grade teacher as she was looking for texts for our upcoming literacy unit that focuses on integrating the science topic of weather. While there are tons of materials out there about weather, we needed texts that taught/used the text structure of sequencing while focusing on the science behind warm and cold fronts. She had already found two main print texts, but we needed two more texts. And, voila! I talked to her about what we had learned in the externship experience, and we were able to locate other types of resources (a video and an infographic) that met our needs perfectly!

I know that  I will be able to apply so much more from my externship experience as the year progresses, but this was certainly the first thing to come to mind! I can’t even begin to numerate all of the ideas from my Kenan Fellows experiences that I am using this year. I’ll save that for another post, I guess!