Evolving into a Digital Literacy Teacher

What a compelling argument!  My mind blew after reading Turner and Hicks’s articles about teaching English students digitally, 5 practices that destroy digital literacy.  I am thoroughly convinced by the authors. The questions: What is a truly digital learning and what is not? made me want to reconsider my lesson plans.  I realize what I have done. I did what Turner and Hick warned, that some of us thought we are teaching the students digitally, but we were not really doing it right.

I grew up learning the rigorous traditional way about English.  Picturing an image of my essay being edited with red markers, either you are right or wrong and re-do your essay until you get it right, is basically what I was brainwashed.  It is a no-brainer because every time I am so excited about presenting the new lesson plan, my students didn’t look excited and complained that they didn’t feel challenged. Clearly, I am teaching them the way I learned, a very dry-academic approach.

After reading these articles, I immediately thought of the professional development workshop I went to two weeks ago.  The professional development workshop was about STEM: Vocabulary and Language in American Sign Language. At first, I was not happy to attend to the workshop because it has nothing to do with English department and that I will be stuck from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. learning about something irrelevant, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.   Boy, was I wrong! I learned a lot that day. This workshop blew my mind. The biggest take away from the workshop was the Flipgrid app. The presenter introduced us a digital learning app, Flipgrid.

After feeling convinced that I need to reframe my thinking on how I develop my lesson plan, I decided to radically change my lesson plan.  I decided to try Flipgrid in my English class. What a head-turning! I can see how excited my students were about using Flipgrid. My lesson plan was ASL Presentation/ASL Storytelling.  At first, they were to create the slideshow on their presentation topic and then do the presentation in front of the class. I realized that I didn't use digital literacy. Then, I changed the plan by having them doing the presentation using video in Flipgrid.  After creating the video, they also get to watch other students’ videos and make comments. The students get to use emoji to mock other students’ mistakes. I can see the huge difference in their learning experience. They are making their learning more fun on their own without me having to make an effort to make their learning experience a fun one.  Second, I also used Storybird for those students who chose to write poems and short story. They get to create and design their own mini-books. They didn’t like it and said it is not student friendly so I tried another app called Book Creator. The most interesting thing is that their faces lightened up when I introduced them into using an app to spice up their work.  That is what digital literacy looks like. I can’t wait to introduce them to more fun learning experience.

I envy today’s Post Millennial generation for having an adventurous education which is far better than I had during my Generation X period especially with today’s advanced technology.

In my earlier blog, I said that it was a big responsibility as an English teacher.  However, for this blog, it is a big commitment to invest my time to learn how to be a digital literacy teacher.  

Will Richardson was mentioned in the Turner/HIcks Chapter 2.  I was surprised to see his name because I am following him on Twitter.  He has one most brilliant mind. A very radical thinker.

The podcast has a wonderful transcript so I could read the interview with Danah Boyd.  One thing that strikes me is that the letter of her first name and last name were both in lowercases.  I wondered why. Also, another thing I have learned from her is that she did not like to be around people and that she likes to socialize people online better.  Often, I would tell my students that it is a bad thing. Now, I think I better reconsider what I tell my students. Maybe, too much of a good thing is a bad thing.  Maybe, I can teach my students to keep their lives in balance. I like that she asked herself often, “what kind of relationship do I want to have with the internet.”  It will help my students to be aware of their intentions.

My Educational System Ideology

The articles I read have changed how I view myself as an English teacher. Who would have thought that I have a big responsibility as an English teacher? I certainly did not. I took my job for granted. I have no clue how important my job is because as an English teacher, I have work to do! To do the work is a huge responsibility. The responsibilities are heavy and burdensome. I am stunned and am trying to put all the information together.

I am referring to the “In Stories They Tell” article on the main responsibilities as an English teacher. 1. To ensure that I teach the morals (the right things to do) to my students; 2. My job is to teach my students how they can argue intellectually through print and digital writing; 3. My job is to be sure that my students are able to see each reason in different perspectives with an open-minded attitude. Like Turner and HIcks mentioned that argument increase intelligent and compassionate conversation with people who immerse the disclosure of a topic; 4. As a teacher, I want to see my students be able to know how to write in all kinds. Depending on the audience, purpose, and situation, Turner and Hicks explained how important it is for the students to write in a different mode and media. 5. It is a chunk of information on my mind that I crave to share with my students all at once, but unfortunately, it is not possible to share such important information overnight. This is beyond my control, however, as an English teacher, I only can start to teach them right now and things will flow over time.

Where do I start? Which one do I start with first? I am overwhelmed with the idea of having huge responsibilities as an English teacher. A job I once thought was simply teaching my students how to write and read well. I no longer think that way and I take my job seriously.

I picked up the idea of having a responsibility as a teacher from “In Stories, They Tell” article. In 1964, Malcolm X envisioned an image of what a newspaper should do: Be responsible. He did not realize how right he was back in 1964. He knew exactly what he was talking about! Look at today’s media, beyond irresponsible, exactly what Malcolm X envisioned. Also, I am stunned when to learn how important it is to be sure that the Black youth to be able to encounter the constant badgering from the media because of the color of their skin. To encounter the constant badgering, they can write to speak up their minds and stand up for what is right. That’s my job to ensure that all of my Black students are able to do that. Not only this but also, it applies to all of the students with different genders, races, and disabilities.


This photo, “Our Education System” reflects my educational system ideology. My ideology is to educate my students based on common senses. I am to adapt, adjust, and modify the curriculum to fit each student. I could not fathom why highly educated people can’t think of a simple concept of what’s best education system for everyone. There is no such One Size for All. I always admire and appreciate Albert Einstein’s simplicity of thinking.

There are brilliant resources I have picked up from the readings: Turner and Hicks have convinced me to agree that I should teach my students the importance of digital argument. Christensen shared wonderful tools I can use to show my students to keep revising until my students get it right. Allsides.com website has given me a better picture of an image what unbiased media look like. I can imagine what my students will think and they will think about how easy it is to understand what unbiased news looks like. I am far impressed with Allsides.com because I like that they allow me to decide what I want to read and what to ignore. Also, it is a perfect place for my students to research related to Baker-Bell, Stanbrough, and Everett’s Pedagogy of Healing lesson plans when assigning my Black and all other races students writing assignments.

Baker-Bell, Stanbrough, and Everett’s article got me thinking about the identity marker activity. At first, I didn’t understand what identity marker was until I checked this website http://www.sidewaysthoughts.com/blog/2013/08/sniffing-your-identity-markers-who-do-you-say-you-are/. 

In the Who Are You? section, I can relate to the feeling of how people decided about who I am. When they labeled who I am, I often correct them immediately. I always wonder why I felt the need to correct my identity. Edward Gorey’s powerful quote gave me an idea why I felt the need to correct my identity. Thanks to Mr. Gorey, he got me thinking about my preference.



There are two identities I prefer to be called: Deba, personally and a teacher professionally at school. Even though, I was born with the name, Debbie Kay; I am a woman; I am a mother to my daughter; I am an English teacher; I am Deaf; I have Deaf family; I am a White; I am a German, and I graduated Gallaudet University. Personally, I prefer to be called Deba because that is exactly who I am. As a professional, I prefer to be called a teacher, not a woman, a girl, Deaf, White or a mother.  These are what my students often called me.  Immediately, I correct them that I am their teacher. 

Why do people find it easier to complicate things than to keep things simple? It is something I will never comprehend for as long as I live.

Do we really have a choice over what’s best education for ALL of the students?

After reading the assigned readings, a question popped up in my mind. Do we have a choice over what’s the best education for the students in all races and with or without disabilities? Except for “The Racial Justice” article, the other two articles I read outlined how white supremacy theory had and continued to design the public education and standardized tests for only the “white students.” I hope that NCTE has recognized the minority (rather than just the race) equality of high-stakes standardized tests. When reading CCSS standards, I can see that they are generally for white, Ivy-league type of educated students. However, because of my high expectation and strong belief, I do believe that anyone can pass the high-stakes standardized tests only if these tests are not directly biased for white, rich, educated parents with children. The public educators need to revisit and re-design the “bias” standardized tests to “unbiased” standardized tests for ALL students.

For example, when doing the norm-referenced testing, the test takers should be specifically selected from all areas such as all races, family income, neighborhood, educational levels of parents, type of disability, and access to resources. Not only this but also, the importance of the schools and the teachers’ positive attitudes toward believing in all students’ abilities to “master abstractions’, regardless what Stanford Professor Lewis Terman said. Linda Christensen believes in her students, so do I. All it takes is all kind of communities to work together to make this happen. While I respect Au’s idea of restorative assessment and transformative assessment and that the teachers need to have a restorative understanding along with transformative strategies and skills to help students to manage to pass the standardized tests. I do not think this is the answer to the real problem. An answer to the real problem with the biased high-stakes standardized tests is that they did not have proper norm-referenced test takers I mentioned above, this needs to be changed for once and all. Sound so simple, Correct? No, there will always be more complicated issues arise related to change the high-stakes standardized tests. Only if there are people who like to solve the problem in a simple conception, the real problem will finally be solved. Do we have a choice in this matter? Heck, no.

In all those years as a student learning and currently as a Teacher teaching, the subconscious effect of white supremacy in the school textbooks and the high-standardized tests never occurred in my mind. After I read the word, white supremacy, an image related to the KKK came across in my mind. I have heard, read, and watched a lot about the KKK when growing up. I believed KKK is all about racial hates among the Confederate States in the South during the Civil War. What I didn’t realize is it still is very much alive, even the whole educational system still is being controlled by the white supremacy just like how President Trump runs the Congress and possibly how the newly elected Justice Brett Kavanaugh will factor his final decisions in the Supreme Court. In Au’s article, Mr. Au discussed how the high-stakes standardized tests were developed intentionally as the weapons towards the students (communities) of color, immigrants, and poor to conclude how superior the white race has been and is. To see the whole picture as truth is a rude awakening to me and my teeth are clenched with a disgusted feeling.

I was taken aback by Stanford Professor Lewis Terman’s analyses on the “feeble-minded” and “mastering abstractions” among the ethnic groups such as African-Americans, Spanish-Indians, and Mexicans. I see the very same for the Deaf that occurred after the 1880 Milan conference. It was the Second International Congress on the Education of the Deaf conference (1) where and when the conference delegates voted for the oral-only method, as opposed to the sign language method, as the primary method of instruction of the Deaf. The vote has a profound impact and destroyed the Deaf education. By banning sign languages, the deaf children were denied and fully deprived of early language acquisition and development through sign language. By language deprivation, many deaf lost educational privileges so badly that they were labeled feeble-minded after years of lack of access to first language use, lack of proper Deaf Education, and lack of trained teachers of the deaf among other untrained support professionals. It makes my blood boil when the professionals diagnosed the Deaf children's learning process as a defection by the deafness itself. Being Deaf is and will never be a problem, to begin with, if a Deaf baby has full access to his or her first language to express and acquire the learning environment any child does at home and the school.

Speaking of "feeble-minded," the name has been linked to the Deaf Education for a very long time since the 1800's. Let me share with you a few of many examples of state school titles to help you to catch on what I meant by this.

American Asylum for the Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons 

Currently is called American School for the Deaf

Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind

Currently is called Gallaudet University

Minnesota Institute for Defective (Deaf, Blind, and Feeble-minded)

Currently is called Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf

Washington School for Defective Youth 

Currently is called Washington School for the Deaf 

If you wouldn’t mind, fill in my shoes and see from my perspective, read this article to see how the prominent doctors were thinking, intellectually when discussing what’s the most appropriate word to rename the Minnesota State School. When reading, my stomach churned and clenched my teeth in anger. For your information, the dialogues among the doctors are not a new “news” for us, the Deaf community Even still in 2018, a large majority of Medical Professionals still think that way when it comes to Deaf Education. President’s Address, Frankfort meeting,1891
https://mn.gov/mnddc/past/pdf/90s/91/91-CCN-ACR.pdf

This article is about a pleading from Clarke School for the Deaf Principal for better instruction and after-school care for feeble-minded deaf students. Reading the word feeble-minded repeatedly in this article is a stomach-churning, and I don’t want to think about what the Deaf people had to endure during that time.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM191710041771406

Here’s another article (another example) where the words, “feeble-minded” and ‘backward”, are used to identify the deaf students in Montana. Ugh.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44464705?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents

When Francis Galton invented eugenics, it has hurt the Deaf community greatly because Alexander Graham Bell adopted the eugenics in his oral-only method theory of Deaf Education. Back to Alexander Graham Bell’s (AGB) destructive oral-only method theory of Deaf Education related to the eugenics link below and my previous blogs. It’s relevant to me that it all happened due to the underlying actions and decisions coming from the white, male supremacy. Let me share the excerpt of an article on AGB. (http://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/535eee797095aa000000025f)

“Graham Bell’s support of oralism was tied to his belief in eugenics. In 1883, Alexander Graham Bell delivered an address to the National Academy of Sciences entitled Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. In this presentation and publication, he discusses the high rates of Deaf-Deaf marriages, and how it increases the number of Deaf children through the passing on of generational Deafness. Alexander Graham Bell argues that this “phenomenon” was creating a Deaf race that shares a language and culture. He says: “Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that lead to the intermarriages of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy.

He goes on to argue that the use of American Sign Language in regional residential schools, the development of Deaf social clubs and programs, and the exposure of young Deaf children to Deaf adults and administrators were encouraging the pattern of Deaf-Deaf marriages. Bell believed that by eliminating these factors, and instead using local oral education schools, Deaf individuals would assimilate into mainstream hearing society, and have more Deaf-hearing marriages, which would decrease the number of Deaf children born. He also argued that oral education would give Deaf individuals greater access to more opportunities in education and employment.”

For more reading, here is the link: https://www.rootedinrights.org/alexander-graham-bell-and-the-deaf-community-a-troubled-history/

Let me redirect my thoughts back to the Racial Justice Is Not A Choice article, Deaf people are in a very same boat as the Black in the field of education. Many deaf students did not pass the standardized tests due to several factors such as 1. the prolonged years of language deprivation; 2. Untrained teachers of the Deaf, and the support services professionals, Audiologists, Early Intervention Specialists, and the health care physicians who were taught and told Alexander Graham Bell’s oral-only method theory in the field of Deaf Education. Graham Bell’s theory was that all Deaf should learn to speak and go to oral school and stay away from the Deaf schools, American Sign Language, and the Deaf Community.), and lack of proper Deaf Education. Many Deaf students still are not able to meet the standard level of education. The Deaf Education has a long way to go, and I am determined, more than ever, to change the Deaf Education from a monolingual, white race (the white supremacy) to a multilingual, multiracial theory and practices to educate Deaf children. What choices do we have? I say we continue to educate and push for a bilingual and multiracial Deaf education for our visual learners (Deaf children).

References
(1) Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_International_Congress_on_Education_of_the_Deaf

Narrative Writer

Surprisingly, the fact Christensen mentioned, in general, English teachers consider writing a narrative essay a child-play for high school students.  What an attitude!  As an English teacher, I find this viable to start with for my language deprived high school students  Christensen made sense when she encouraged students to move up their narrative writing skills after capturing the skills and then study other authors' construction styles.

Playing with language is fun! Christensen repeatedly emphasized how important it is to let students play with the language after learning how authors construct their work.  Not only this but also I like when she suggested that to write narrative stories will build community and connect their lives to the curriculum.  She made more sense that the method of sharing stories are to bust the myth of our society and increase feeling safe to take academic risks.

I tagged a lot of the pages with notes in the book because I definitely want to use those ideas for my classes!  I am feeling so excited and hope that they will bring the best out of my Deaf students.  Speaking of one topic related to social injustice.  I thought of Brett Kavanaugh and I discussed him for the quick write session. One of my female students mentioned that Brett has a "UGH" at the suffix of his last name.  She said it was a perfect fit last name for Brett.  I laughed at her for her sense of humor.  I really enjoyed the discussion and what I learned from Christensen did work very well.

Christensen's suggestions to use the past, current, and ongoing issues to go at parallel with classic novels and short stories as part of a writing assignment.  What a great idea!

My favorite teaching philosophy of Christensen's is she does not grade the papers, but to give them credit for their efforts and show how much they work on their essays through revision and edit.

Christensen focuses a lot on poverty and racial difference while I am not in the same boat.  However, I am in a similar situation with the poverty part, but as for the students, they are more about being Deaf than their race.  For example, Deaf students faced discrimination based on their hearing loss in employment, education, and society.   One of the narrative essays Christensen's students wrote used a word that strikes me is "handicapable."  How true!  Most of the Deaf people hated the word, "handicapped."  The Deaf community prefers to be called disabled than handicapped.  After reading a student's story, I will go for "handicapable."

Michelle Kenney's Politics of Paragraph strikes me the truth behind 5 Paragraph rule.  Almost daily, my Deaf students would ask me repeatedly, "How many paragraphs do I have to have?"  I told them they need the basic 5 Paragraph to start with.  They still did not get it because they would ask a very same question again and again.  I felt like cringe them and say, "Please stop asking this question because it drives me crazy!"  Thanks to Michelle, I know I am not only one!  I enjoy how much she uses food as metaphors to writing tools.  Now, I know the complete truth that there are not very many good English teachers out there right now because they are so stuck to traditional English teaching methods.  Not everyone thinks like the Ivy League students.