Being a Writer: What does it Mean in My Classroom?

Literacy is a very important part of my teaching pedagogy.

My grandfather had to work hard in order to learn: walking 10 miles a day, teaching himself to read, running away from home to go to college.

Literacy is a very important part of my teaching pedagogy.

My house was filled with books. We have two aunts who are authors and book reviewers so I was never without something to read.

Literacy is a very important part of my teaching pedagogy.

I first taught someone how to read when I was 13.  It was a uphill battle all the way and I never thought we'd make it but hearing him call every two months to tell me whats up with Harry Potter these days is the most rewarding experience I have ever had.

Literacy is a very important part of my teaching pedagogy.

I once used books to escape what was going on at home.  My family was struggling and I had no where else to turn but to Meg Cabot,  Amelia Atwater Rhodes, and Anonymous. 

Literacy is a very important part of my teaching pedagogy.

I want every child to know what it feels like to hold a book in their hands and think "this will be an adventure- let me dive right in."

Where I come from shapes who I am as a person and as a teacher. My cultural Autohistory after the break will give you a little more insight as to how were I came from and how I was raised. Take a look!

I started this blog so that I would have a way to look back during my teaching career and reference things that I learned during my undergrad. I wanted it to be a way to find strategies and lesson plans in a second... and then I realized how much work it took to put together all of those strategies in order for me to be able to access them like that in the future.  Making a blog is a lot of hard work! But in thinking about how much work goes into preparing to teach, I realized that the preparation is not just to have a good lesson for the students but to get myself mentally and physically ready to become a teacher.  On days when I have my student observations and I come home with my whole body sore and my brain telling me to get in bed I have to remind myself of the reason why I am doing this and think about the awesome outcome that will come from pushing though.
More students than ever are struggling with a lack of literacy and having great teachers who understand what their barriers to learning are is the key to solving the problem.  As I learned at 13, you can't just teach a kid how to read.  You have to teach a kid to WANT to read first, and doing that is usually the hardest part.  
While this blog post/reflection is just me trying to find the worlds that I would like to use in my essay, I really do feel strongly about children's literacy and doing what we can as teachers to bolster it as much as possible.  Having a population of youth that are not able to explore the worlds hidden in the written word around them is heartbreaking and I believe we need to do all we can to return literacy to the children.  

Topics I would like to touch on in my essay:

-What literacy is

-Why I think it is important

-What makes me a teacher of literacy

-What I have learned about getting students to become literate

-Writing: "I make them write write write and then I make them reeead." -Mali

Support essay with Other People's Words, TLE book for activities, and Hip Hop Education Pedagogy (Dr. Love)

My teaching philosophy in words.