Debbie Diller and Fountas and Pinnell have written about literacy centers. They have some good thoughts and it's certainly not an author's fault when people go overboard with the information, but I have found as a literacy coach that some of these ideas have been sadly altered in practice. I guess my greatest objection (and what makes me lean more toward The Daily Five) is the "parts is parts" trap. What happens sometimes is that there is a unconscious slide in practice from creating places where children can read and write to places where the children do "stuff" (often parts) to keep them away from the teacher. Or, in the case of some rooms with ten "centers," keep them away from any more than one at a time of their peers either. Basically, there is a shift from centers you'd want children to learn from - to centers to fill time, which is exactly what the worry was starting this discussion. Some "centers" might be tachistoscopes so that children are sliding vowels or phonograms, some "games" where children line up words according to patterns, some chunking games, maybe cards where children use a wet-erase marker to write syllables on lines -- you get the picture. It seems to me that when teachers use centers as "portable worksheets," the emphasis goes to the lowest common denominator instead of rich literacy instruction. Much of what teachers can "pull out" is nothing more than parts of words, parts of sentences, parts of parts. The other problem I see as serious and ultimately the Achilles heel of center "instruction" is a lack of initiative and intentionality can actually be promoted with the practice, and that's something I'm still working out in my own head as a potential problem with The Daily Five. With centers, it's pretty easy to see if children are actually engaged in authentic reading or writing or are filling their time with staying away from the teacher and interrupting her with her Real Work. The tasks truly are the teacher's and it's up to the child to follow the teacher's instructions and "do" what the teacher has assigned. It's pretty easy to see when it doesn't come from the child, isn't conceived of by the child, isn't expanded or tweaked by the child, isn't continued on by the child.... After all, the child is the empty vessel in some of those centers, not the candle to be lit. Now, the "activities" in the Daily Five are much more in balance and authentic (not so much parts is parts), but I'm still wondering about what could be a rigid "rotation." When I first heard about the Daily Five, I envisioned that the children would proceed through the 5 in a natural way that would allow and encourage initiative and intentionality. When I got deeper into it and heard the sisters speak, I realized that we're still talking about distinct time periods here and an enforced "rotation." So a child might be way engaged in reading some historical fiction, the bell would sound, there would be a read aloud about Martin Luther King, the child would move on and becoming engaged in writing about habitats which sustain wildlife, the bell would sound, there would be a mini-lesson about exciting leads, the child would become engaged in working on a rewrite of Hats for Sale for reader's theater, the bell would sound.... well, you get the picture. The lack of opportunity for a child to plan and sustain is further exacerbated when the periods are cut from 30 minutes to 20 minutes in order to get the Five into some schools' literacy blocks. How would we, as adults, take to being interrupted every 20 minutes with what we're doing and forced to start something else, knowing we'd have only 20 minutes with that as well? The reasoning for the "interrupting" every 20-30 minutes is given as "brain-based" where it's purported that people can sustain attention to something only for a given time and then their brain needs to move on. It's pretty hard for me to buy that when I've observed kids doing science experiments for extended times as they change variables over and over again, or designing and redesigning some structure in a sandbox and working the kinks out, or finally getting to the place where they are writing the ending to a fantasy tale which is the "shocker" and will make the whole story come out just right. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that every child in our care will be self-motivated, self-directed, self-evaluative, etcetera, etcetera--but even given that, should we really be structuring our children's day so that they can't get better at those things which will serve them well in their quest to be a lifelong learner with all the characteristics of such? Where initative matters. Where intentionality matters. Where flexible thinking is vital. Where problem-solving in a group is key. When Ellin (in To Understand) talks about literacy studio, or Lucy talks about writers' workshop, the "tasks" are authentic and are basically the children's. When Selma Wasserman talks about curriculum for Serious Players or Jerry Harste talks about inquiry cycles, there is both the opportunity and the requirement that the child is the powerful learner. I think it goes all the way back to John Dewey, really. And when we look at what literacy centers (or the Daily 5) can become if they are regarded chiefly as a way to keep kids busy and the teacher uninterrupted, I think we're heading down the wrong path. That path can't get us to where we want to go. That is, if we want to create learners who are powerfully interested in learning, can inquire and pursue the inquiry, and can sustain interest over time. I think all that needs considered and my hope would be that the consideration would be the classroom teachers' and the children's, rather than an administrator in central administration. But this is 2008, waaaaay after 1984. Bev
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 00:04:09 -0400> To: > mosaic@literacyworkshop.org> Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Centers/Literacy > Stations--> > Jean.... at Columbia Lucy talks about centers but she calls > them literacy > centers and they all center around books... much like Melissa > and Beverly > described.... book clubs, or theme oriented, author centers, > strategy based... > read alone, read with a partner, read with a group, and > listening centers. _________________________________________________________________ Change the world with e-mail. Join the i’m Initiative from Microsoft. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/Default.aspx?source=EML_WL_ChangeWorld _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
