The Rigorous Classroom, a High Expectation for my students

The Stewart readings were not as pleasant as the previous readings. Don’t get me wrong. It is not because I don’t like what I learned. I am merely overwhelmed with the complicated information. What makes it so complicated is DHH students, whose first language is American Sign Language, do not read, write or speak foreign languages. Most of DHH students didn’t learn their native language because they couldn’t hear their families speaking the language on a daily basis. Not only this but also, most of the time the parents didn’t know the sign language in their countries, either. As a teacher, I am trying to figure out how to integrate the valuable information I learned from Stewart in DHH classroom. I certainly have to figure out how to make the multilingual and multicultural work in this unique situation. I will not dismiss the importance of integrating the culture, language, and community into my lesson plans, but I find myself feeling challenged trying to process the information and make sense out of everything.

Stewart’s Keep it R.E.A.L has a great, simple, yet complicated teaching tool. In the areas of relevant and engaging, he pointed out that we, as teachers, cannot assume we know what students are interested in and be sure to make them feel engaged in learning. I agree with him that we have to ask questions and lead a discussion to see what they are interested in. As a contemporary ELA teacher, I believe in asking students questions and discussing with students at the beginning of the year to see what their interests are and what will motivate them in to write and read before I decide the year-long curriculum. Also, I often ask them questions after every unit or lesson plan to collect pros and cons feedback.

Stewart’s bilingual theory is very helpful because it reminds me to ask students who came from other countries questions about their language and culture. I agree that it will make them feel included in my classroom. What challenge me is how to integrate the “bilingual’ concept into my lesson plan because they are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Their first language usually is American Sign Language. They may not feel included culturally and linguistically at home because they didn’t have a good communication with their own families. However, I believe that the students should have the opportunity to learn everything that they may have missed at home.

I agree with Stewart when he emphasizes we still need to affirm students’ culture and language identities. I can only imagine how lost the DHH students feel because they feel like they identify themselves as Deaf persons away from their own cultural and linguistic identities. I could help to bring them back to where they really belong to and at the same time, they can appreciate the multilingual and multicultural learning experience. Pahl and Roswell’s Conceptualizing Artifactual Literacies are amazing perfect tools for DHH students to be able to share their own cultural background and experience through their artifacts. DHH students rely on visual aids, and this is a perfect way to ‘elicit stories to open up the students’ home experience and enable the teachers to access communities that may not be visible within schools.’ (Stewart). Anything to link the motivation in writing, reading, learning, and communicating is the way to go!

The reader response theory is something I want to make a habit to use in my classroom every day. I truly believe it is the best way to elicit the DHH students into writing, thinking, signing, and reading. Stewart made it clear that reader response is a foundational principle of R.E.A.L. Instruction so the theory definitely is a takeaway. I admire Louise Rosenblatt’s metaphor about including contemporary literature with the classics in order to connect to reader’s experiences, “the poem”. When she said it is important to continue and evaluate our curriculum library and assignments with a critical eye, I feel relieved because that is what I do every year. I often wonder if I am on the right path. Thanks to Rosenblatt, I am on the right path.

The word I learned from the professional development workshop I attended at the beginning of the school year was ‘rigorous’. Our school’s new Curriculum and Instruction principal is awesome because she brought something I strongly believe in, a high expectation for all of the students. She used the title, “Rigorous Classroom” and explained what the word, “rigorous’, really meant. Many of us thought of it as strict, but in fact, it means high expectation. Likewise, in the Stewart Chapter 2, the statement from Beers and Probst strikes it true, “Rigor is not an attribute of a text, but rather a characteristic of our behavior with the text… [It] resides in the energy and attention given to the text, not the text itself.” Another point Stewart made is right, we cannot allow students to get by or get away because these lessons might be difficult. We need to encourage them to keep going writing and reading constantly including doing homework with high expectation attitude.

My philosophy related to homework is I don’t believe in giving homework because students have their own lives at home. They need a break from 8 hours of schooling. Why should I add more hours to their personal time? However, because Stewart made a good point about consistency of practicing, I need to reconsider my philosophy of homework.

Teaching the students the ability to engage in critical thinking, evaluating ideas, creatively expressing thinking using linguistic repertoire in motivating and articulate ways are the key components I will carry close to my heart. I also like Stewart’s 5 simple rules and finally, nothing is too complicated about the rules. If I want my students to do things I expect of them, I have to be a role model. Above all, despite the confusion and complications, I may face, all of these tools I learned definitely are worth my time and energy.