First Post Ever!!!!!!!!

To read or not to read, that is the question!

So I'm reading all the assigned readings for this week and all these thoughts about reading and content area literacy are flying through my head. So this post is going to be a reflection on some of the most important ideas that stuck with me after reading the readings for this week.

Warning: There were enough ideas flying through my mind while reading these articles that may cause the following reflections to appear as ramblings, streams of conciousness, or even incoherent blabberings. Please try to see through the chaos.

The first thing that hit me was that I was reading about some researchers who discovered that preservice teachers did not really enjoy blogging or feel as though they gained anything from it when it was implemented as an instructional strategy in their 'literacy class.' Honestly this was probably not the best thing for me to read because it got very close to making my mind completely shut down causing me to go into "go to school and not get anything out of it" mode. Once I averted that conundrum I moved into uber critical mode. This is where I criticize everything that is being written and come down hard on it with an iron fist (or "mindfist" since I am writing). So basically what I got from the first reading about college students blogging for class was this: A bunch of researchers really like the idea of using blogs in preservice teaching classes, but the response to blogging by the preservice teachers was very negative, yet none the less, the researchers did not want to give up on their idea so regardless of the results of their study they still want to push blogging. Personally I think that is pretty dumb. (I can say that because this is a blog right?)

The question that kept popping up in my head as I read these different articles was What do we want our students to get out of all this literacy when it is all said and done? Honestly this is the big question. We can take this one step further and ask ourselves as educators what do we want our students to be when we they finally break free from compulsory eduction? Well, I don't think blogger has enough space to delve into that second questionm, so I'll just try to answer the first one. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is exactly that the esteemed authors of the various articles we had to read for this week really want students to be able to do when they graduate (grade level that is). From the literature/english teacher perspective it would seem that they would want the student to be able to read at grade level and be able to critically evaluate a reading. To this I say so what! I am not saying that that we sholdn't be fostering critical thinking and appropriate reading levels, but lets be real here for a second. No one is going to be able to get by in life with a resume that says: reads on grade level and can critically analyze the classics. A more appropriate goal is for students to be able to survive when they graduate. Critically thinking, analyzing texts, and reading comprehension are parts of surviving in today's society but they are not the only tools one needs to make it.

Why do I break it all down to surviving? Well at the heart of all humans is a will to survive, and that is really all we are doing in this life. The society, culture, and all the other fluff that fills our days is nothing more that time fillers because we as humans have become so good at surviving.

It seems as though I have strayed away from the topic, and you ask how can he bring it back? Well here I go: literacy is a survival tool in today's society (at least our nice American one).

I don't know all the answers to life, but I do know that if you are illeterate in the society that I live in you will have no chance of survival. The reason for this is because of the internet. The World Wide Web changed humanity (first world at least) and made it necessary to be literate. Everything peice of information a person could ever want (or need) is on the internet. But if you are illiterate you cannot reap the benefits of all the internet than you are really missing out. Because of my literacy I have been able to self diagnose running injuries through reading medical journals on the internet and learn how to fix my toilet. Although these are two of the minor accomplishements I have made via the internet and my literacy I think they demonstrate the vastness that is the internet. And don't try to act like the internet isn't everything, because I have and it doesn't work.

Ok so now I'm going to tie all my ramblings together. Blogging = not a big deal, literacy = pretty important, survival = everything, survival in our society = literacy (among other things).

Why did I go about writing my first blog this way? Well maily to do two things: the first to show that a blog is an informal way of exchanging opinions and thoughts, or at least that is what I got from the readings. Secondly, it is to show that I feel that although literacy is important I do not think that it is the most important thing in education now. But who knows, maybe my opinion will change by the end of the semester.